Being a foodie not blessed with a great metabolic rate, I have been fighting a losing battle with my weight from ever since I remember. To make matters worse, my will power crumbles or rather vanishes when I see food and comes back only after I have gorged on the last morsel on the plate or after the second or third helping! Then the guilt kicks in and I feel like crawling under a rock till the calories and girth I have gained disappear. However to do that I will have to find a really big rock considering my size, and in this concrete jungle that I call home, it is rather an impossible task :(
I have had friends and well wishers giving me tips on how to cut down on my portions or how to shake my head sideways when anything is offered to me that I know is not healthy or something I should not be eating. Try as I might, I come back to my senses only after committing the crime :P I have gone on umpteen diets only to come back to square one after a few days, or months, depending on how rash my diet was.
I have a nutritionist friend who I will call S who has been behind my life to start a raw food diet for a really long time. He raves about the benefits of fasting, the detox that happens in your system after eliminating processed food and foods free of preservatives all the time and keeps giving me gaalis in the hope that I will adopt a healthy lifestyle. I keep warding him off or go on the diet he recommends for a day or four and get back to my old ways and my old weight or a little more every time :'(
This time S says there are others who have accepted his challenge (for different reasons) to go completely raw for 40 days and that I should join them so that I have company and can share my experience with them and learn from theirs. For some reason I accept! And now I am in serious trouble. I scramble to buy some veggies that I can eat raw, and fruits to binge on as they are going to be my best friends for the next 40 days. I know with a little imagination I can come up with unique combinations and concoct new raw dishes... the key is in planning right and finding the time to do it.
And just cause I am not going to eat any cooked food for the next 40 whole days, and so that I don't have any cravings during that period, I go out with a friend and treat myself to a bowl of Minestrone soup and a Farmer's Pizza. Then I come back home and polish off the kulfi lying in my fridge so that it doesn't feel bad or neglected. I ask my help to take everything cooked lying at my place so that I don't give in to last minute temptation and I am finally feel ready for the challenge although I am already having second thoughts.
I start planning my next day - what I should carry for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Oh by the way did I mention that this is also a vegan diet, so I also have to give up on my chai, coffee, buttermilk, curd, yoghurt,etc. everything I love so much!
I decide to maintain a diary and share it with all of you so that I will be compelled to be sincere and stick to my plan. For once I am convinced of the health benefits this diet will bring me and I am concentrating on those; rather than the weight loss which will hopefully be a by-product. For just this reason, I decide not to weigh myself everyday so that I do not feel disheartened if I do not lose much.
Wish me luck my friends... to stay on track. I hope I do not falter mid-way and give up like I do everytime! And don't be naughty and tempt me with cooked food in the next 40 days ;)